How much violence should be in a Children's Story?

[rocklobster]

I am currently writing a story that I wish to target to children and teenagers. I've just started introducing the conflict, which includes violence. (I only stress this because there are some stories where the conflict isn't violently resolved, mostly in the coming of age variety) And here's the rub: I'm not sure how violent I should be. You see, I've noticed that in some children's stories there are some pretty disturbing moments. (check out any book by Roald Dahl. Matilda, for example, had parents from hell) So I'm not really sure how much violence a child can take. What do you think? (For the record, I thought a PG/PG-13 level would be a good limit)

[AnimeGirl]

Well, I suggest bloodless battles. You can have battle scenes without serious injury, maybe a few bloody cuts once in awhile, but like rarely. A good way to figure out what amount of violence should be in a Children's book (depending on what age level you plan on hitting), perhaps you should look at animes or books aimed at your target audience, see how they convey violence, that should give you a good idea. I love the Chronicles Of Narnia books, and there was alot of action and adventure, without having to be disturbing or dark, there may have been a few moments, but for the most part, it's what a child can handle. *nods*

[LadyRushia]

One thing I've learned from taking a Children's Lit class is that the idea of what a child can handle is really subjective. I would say to just write the story the way it wants to be written because if you think too much about censoring yourself, you might end up with a bad piece of writing.

Look at Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example. There's plenty of fighting in that show, but no blood, no heads getting chopped off, no guts flying everywhere, etc. At the same time, you don't notice that things like that were purposefully left out because the target audience is young children. That's because the creators just went with what the story called for.

No matter what you do, if you write any children's story you're going to have some librarian angry with you for writing a book that a child "can't handle."

[rocklobster]

Just a little something for you guys to put into perspective--I also read a lot of Dickens as a child. Man, that guy was depressing. But at least he knew how to throw in a happy ending and make it all better.

[Desert Rose]

Consider the violence in the old Grimm fairy tales. Nouthing discriptive, and hints should be okay.

[rocklobster]

Yeah, but in Brothers Grimm, people were being beheaded and such. DOn't let Disney fool you, there was some very violent stuff going on.

[Desert Rose]

True, but they were being aimed at children. I read them all the time when I was younger.

I don't know anything about your story, so I can't really say much. Just make it something that a child in your family would be okay reading.

[MightiMidget]

Grimm is uber violent, but was still aimed at children. If you do have lengthy violence, maybe make it really...matter-of-factly. A lot of stuff in, say, Grimm, would have gone over my head when I was younger just because of how stated it was instead of it drawing attentiont to itself by description.

Rushia is correct, though. Just go with the story. Besides, if you end up with something older maybe that just isn't the right story for children?

[ScalpelFactory]

I think for children's stories fear is more of a factor than actual violence. I remember the characters themselves being scary, but only one thing was violent, like a stabbing or a shoving into an oven or something else.

Not much detail is needed. Kids still have imaginations, they can figure it out on their own.

[Dante]

Really I would think that would depend upon the kid and the age group. When creating a story that targets young people you have remember that one or two years makes a REALLY big difference. That means that something that seems cool to a 10 year old is going to seem childish and immature to a 12 year old. On the flip side, that which just excites a bit of adrenaline to a 12 year old will scare a 10 year into a sleepless night of horrors.

Furthermore, protagonist connection will be far harder unless you can match the age of your protagonist to that of the reader. Your reader isn't going to be interested in the life of an older teenager, he wants adventure NOW. Nor does he want to feel belittled and babyish reading about a character that's younger them him/her. (To be subtle or clever about it, you could always have your omnipotent narrator connect with the reader by referring to said character as "about their age")

As adults we don't typically see these things in this manner because our notion of age changes dramatically when as we leave adolescence (I almost believe this is a maternal/paternal instinct to psychologically see our children as our own protagonists), but in our youth things were quite different - you can probably remember that most of your friends weren't likely much younger or older then you.

Once you have this notion down, you can probably start to focus in on your target audience. When this comes to things of questionable morality, age can and will make a big difference. Sadly, modern culture provides guidelines and these not only represent what many young people view as guidelines of acceptably viewable material, but they also expect to view it as a sign of their own coming of age. It's hilarious really, because society teaches them it's alright to view PG-13 material at 13 when in reality, a 13 year old should have no place observing most of that stuff... and then, the church, which should have influenced the cultural values of society more, picks on them for doing it. <_<

I'm not an expert, I'll admit, but I think that if you have a story that is begging you as the author to add violence because that event is important to the story or character development, then you can't quite leave it out. Our creative flow is unfortunately unwilling to be molded by anything and sometimes stories simply speak to us as we write them. But, how you write that story is up to you.

I would then however, like to present a hypothesis on this topic. That is a rather uncommon viewpoint that violence in a story is not bad, it's how violence is presented that is bad. In other words, in the western culture, we present violence from the viewpoint that a violent event, killing and torturing others, ect., is an experience observed from third person. That it's an event without emotions or empathy; it is nothing more then flashing lights followed by a single soundtrack of the phrase "AHHHHHH!" (Notice how you probobly felt numb watching "shock and awe" on international television). That is, nothing more then an image that is perceived. Time and time again, this is how battle, murder and the face of war is presented to young people and so they learn that this is an acceptable behavioral reaction to violence. "I simply lose touch with my emotions, observe myself from out of body and do what needs to be done." That is to say, we depersonalize violence under the banner, of "the end justifies the means" - and western culture loves it, you can't beat the commies any other way.

But instead of using violence to kill their emotions, it can also be a powerful force to teach them empathy and to see the murder of human beings not as a natural way of life, but as an unnatural evil. The latter is rarely done, so you have few examples. It is easy, I imagine, to describe what a battle scene looks like, to describe blood and gore as an image... it very hard though, to describe how it feels to be there, how it feels to be a part of it all and how it feels to watch with your own eyes the life-soul of another human being fade from existence at your hand. To realize that the "Them" your nation or side always talked about, is actually no more or less human then you and begging you now for help in pain.

Do it the first way, and your character will slaughter a hundred souls and go out for ice-cream without even washing his hands. Do the latter, and the first innocent soul he realizes that he harms will scar his soul for the rest of his life. Then which character is the one you're creating? (And can you afford their therapy bills when you're done)

So then, try to see if you can sketch out a rough draft of the battle scene ahead of time, and see if you can't make the focus more on the human attributes and less on the visual ones - and as an author, take them with this to lands they've never seen. Sure, human beings bleed when you cut them, but that's boring, they've already been there by now. But they've never had to watch facial expressions, or hear the pleas of the person they kill, they've never had their hand grabbed before they felt the pulse stop of their best friend. They've watched themselves get pummeled by a million arrows and survive by author ex machina, but they've never whimpered as they lived by sheer luck through the experience of almost certain instant death and then stood humiliated before hundreds of others (who honestly couldn't care) that they wet themselves from sheer fright of the experience (Make sure to build their bravery up before-hand though so the reader doesn't just assume they're weak). They've never had to face the eyes, pain and hatred of the ones who cherished the life they took, nor did they ever get to experience a spiritual experience of flipping perspectives of the person they killed and beg themselves not to kill them.

Then let them fear pain and horror from one side, and humiliation and collapse of their self-esteem from the other and you can create a living hell for your character on the battlefield without describing a single drop of blood. And in media today, you can create a vivid and tactile world your reader will have NEVER been to on top of it all. For in today's world, a single tear is more powerful then so many buckets of red paint. They may wake up with nightmares from the experience, but you'd rather your reader awoke with the terror of experiencing war, then viewing the murder of others as a "glorious" or "numb" experience.

That though, is simply my perspective as an author. They'd probably burn my books, but claim the bloodshed and numbness as "good clean fun".

[Lynna]

If you have ever read a true and unedited Grimms Fairy Tale, you would not want to put that kind of voilence in. I didn't read it till I was 11, and I still think they could have done better without the excess violence...

[steenajack]

rocklobster@ Maybe you can do something like say "imply" the more graphic violence. For example, you can say that someone died without showing it in complete detail. Or, you can also try something like simply saying a character "falls off a cliff" or "was beheaded" without describing anything in gory detail. Then again, it really depends on your target audience. For people 10+, they can handle (as far as I know) action and bloodless violence and such. A seventeen year old, however, can handle more description, drama, and at times blood/gore. You could find that area where the two different perspectives kinda meets in the middle a bit (action-violence-without-going-over the-top). The thing is, you can make a good action story without getting too violent. An example of this would be Avatar: The Last Airbender or Race to Witch Mountain or National Treasure.
In the end, I'd say don't write in the goal of pleasing others, write for you cause you love doing it. I'd say kinda go with the flow of your story and see how it turns out. You may even decide to change your target audience or something. Anyhow, I hope I was of help to you. May the Lord bless you and your writings.